I set myself down in words, in ink.
Blue lines running like rivers on the page
and my name
scrawled at the end with a hesitant hand.

My penmanship inelegant, sentences ineloquent
saying everything and nothing that I wanted to say.

But writing things down is like leaving fingerprints
or getting paper cuts, or making reckless decisions.

It’s like trying to draw a bird in a minute:
unable to capture its lightness and movement.

Or singing a song when you only know half the verses
or performing soliloquies and one-sided discourses
already knowing the crowd will be disappointed.

But I’ve set myself down in words, in ink.
Blue lines like rivers course over the margins—
and it’s up to someone else to decide
if they’ll follow them into the ocean.